Nightmares from Normal Town

When I dove head first into teaching last year, I was surprised to discover that teachers are just as afraid (if not more so) of their students as the students are of us! The reason for this is #1 we know that every student is capable of making the rest of us miserable (and likewise we are capable of making all of our students miserable too) but more importantly #2 we know that we are responsible for organizing and structuring the class. If we don't plan ahead then chaos reigns. Which brings about this strange phenomenon of teacher nightmares. If you talk to a seasoned teacher I'm sure he/she can tell you that these are not fun to experience. I've had several myself over the last few weeks and I wake up sweating. Here's the scenario I dreamed up to torture myself last night:

It was the week before school started. I had fabulous lesson plans written but that was all of the preparation I'd done. None of my materials were ready. I needed to make copies of the activities, write the syllabus and organize my room. All of these things could easily be done during pre-planning. When I got to school I found that I was 30 minutes late. All of my new students were sitting in desks in a room I'd never seen (part of which seemed to be a parking lot). I had left my lesson plans at home by accident. I was confused and panicky. I dug around through the desk in the room and found a dry-erase marker and started going over my rules and procedures. But my students started asking questions that I'd never thought of and had no idea how to answer. Not only that but I found out I had a special needs student on the front row who couldn't write or speak. He could only grunt and throw papers. The class was out of control faster than I could blink. And then our new administrator used the overhead paging system to call my room. She was very upset because she'd been looking at one of the worksheets that I'd made last semester and it was not anatomically correct. I had no idea what she was referring to but I was mortified that before I'd even met her in person she was already criticizing me in front of this very unruly class. Then a car drove through the back portion of my room before I finally woke up.

The biggest underlying fear for a teacher, or at least for me, is losing the reigns of the classroom and feeling helpless and powerless to get everyone back on track. However, I find that there are a few good things that come from these nightmares. First of all they really help to motivate me when I don't feel like going that extra mile to get ready for my classes. Secondly, no matter how bad the first day is, I know there will never be cars driving through my classroom!!